Hangzhou woman wins sexual-discrimination lawsuit

A Chinese woman has won a sexual discrimination lawsuit after a court in eastern China ruled in her favor on Wednesday.

Xihu District People’s Court in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, said a culinary school had violated the woman’s right to equal employment and should pay her 2,000 yuan (US$323) in compensation.

Guo Jing, a college graduate, took Dongfang Cooking Training School in Hangzhou to court after it denied her job application on the basis that “the school only wants male employees” in late June.

Guo said she met all the school’s requirements for the clerical post.

“We cannot keep silent any more,” she said.

This is the second such case that has created a storm in the country.

Two years ago, a woman named Cao Ju sued a company individually for sexual discrimination and won. Cao was compensated 30,000 yuan (US$4,894) in what has been called “China’s first employment gender discrimination case.”

A report from the All-China Women’s Federation in 2011 suggested that 56.7% of interviewed female college graduates said they had fewer opportunities than their male counterparts. Ninety-one percent of interviewees felt they had been victims of sexual discrimination from employers.

“Sexual discrimination is very common in the job market,” Guo said, “I want to tell women to protect our rights through established legal weapons.”

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